Friday March 29th, 2024 6:23AM

The reality of an election season

We have the damnedest way of electing presidents in this country.

Forget for a moment about the absurdity of last week’s Iowa Caucus, when the simple task of counting the votes became a technological nightmare, and focus on a bigger question. Why in the world does the state of Iowa get to go first? And tradition, which is the only answer anyone seems to have, really isn’t a good reason.

Iowa, with a population just north of 3 million people, is the 31st most populous state in the union. It accounts for less than 1 percent of the total U.S. population. On top of that, only 176,400 Iowans participated in the Democratic caucus last week.

This week, New Hampshire, with even few people than Iowa, gets its chance. 

And therein lies the problem. Iowa has seven electoral votes. New Hampshire has just four. Combined they have fewer electoral votes than Georgia, which has 16. Do you know what that means? It means that when the presidential circus rolls into Georgia for our primary in March, the nominee may already have been selected and your vote will mean bumpkus.

There has to be a better way. We need a system that engages the American people. Right now, we’re all sick of politics. That’s partly because the 2020 race for president began about 47 minutes after Donald Trump finished his inauguration speech in 2016. 

If we really want the American people to get involved, maybe we should turn the campaign into one of those reality shows we seem to love so much. The presidential race could become a hybrid of “American Idol,” “The Voice” and “Survivor.” We could probably get Ryan Seacrest or Michael Strahan to host it.

Like “American Idol,” we could have open auditions across the country where any person, regardless of how much money they have, can come vie for a chance to be leader of the free world.

In the early rounds, we could test the candidates on the basics of American history. Any candidate who doesn’t recognize the preamble to the Constitution or know what the shot heard round the world is would immediately be eliminated.

Knowing the basics of our country’s history is the bare minimum a presidential candidate should know. So when one of them thinks the Constitution starts, “Four score and seven years ago,” the humiliated candidate will be escorted off the stage by one of the Kardashians.

In the next round, candidates will be taken to a “Survivor”-like island, where they will be quizzed on their solutions to such problems as the budget deficit, immigration and Social Security reform. 

Each time candidates answer with rehearsed political rhetoric instead of real-world, sensible solutions, they’ll be forced to wrestle an alligator and eat a plate of live bugs. Viewership will go through the roof as Joe Biden tries to choke down a plate of grubs.

At the end of each round, the candidate who performed the worst will be voted off the island and forced to do a two-hour interview with Sean Hannity. This process will continue until there are only two candidates remaining.

The American public then will call special 800 numbers to make their choices. The winner will be announced during halftime of the Super Bowl.

There is no telling what kind of candidate this system might produce. But given what a mess the professional politicians have made, it might be a refreshing change.

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